Bethesda has released the first bits of Dishonored 2 gameplay footage

As someone that enjoys stealth games to a rather... unhealthy degree, Dishonored was a welcome and quite enjoyable surprise. Compared to most stealth games released around that time it offered genuine challenge, well designed levels, and a gripping world that still has me pondering the nature of the mysterious Outsider. In other words, it was actually good, especially the DLC which managed to ramp everything up a couple of notches and create some of the best "sneaky levels" around.

If you share my love for Dishonored you will be glad to hear that from what Bethesda shown so far Dishonored 2 looks to be just as good as the original, if not better! There are two gameplay videos to check out, so let's start with the shorter one, the official gameplay trailer:

I won't comment on the obvious stuff found throughout the trailer, but I will bring the spotlight to one rather interesting inclusion - robotic enemies you can stab. On first glance this seems to be a small addition, just another enemy type for you to contend with, but the main issue with Dishonored (from a stealth purist standpoint anyway) is that the majority of the powers are useless for a pacifist stealth playthrough. See where I'm getting with this? Since the robots are not actual living things, and since they will probably be incredibly annoying to deal with, perhaps they will be the reason why those on a pacifist playthrough might invest more than a single rune towards something combat orientated. If this ends up being true, it would certainly be an interesting way to approach the issue.

The second thing that excites me greatly is the return of the Outsider, one of the most intriguing forces of chaos I've seen in a video game. He never influences events directly, he simply gives people the power to enact change, and then steps to the sidelines. Best of all, there are some heavy, heavy hints pointing towards him being a giant, telephatic whale... how cool is that! While I'm sure Corvo and Emily will have interesting stories in their own rights, its the Outsider that has my full attention, and hopefully Dishonored 2 manages to deliver.

Magical whales aside, here's the longer gameplay video, courtesy of Kotaku who managed to record the recent Bethesda presentation. Unfortunately, the video is suffering from some framerate issues on account of the stream being rather unstable, so if you're easily annoyed I would recommend waiting for something more official to appear. For those of you that don't mind such things, here's the video: